


The Woman King

by Zelos



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Absent Parents, Bad Parenting, Dysfunctional Relationships, Gen, Love, PTSD, Post WWII, bad relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-13
Updated: 2013-08-13
Packaged: 2017-12-23 08:26:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/924092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zelos/pseuds/Zelos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She could not pull him from the ocean, but she could, however little, from however far away, anchor him to shore.</p><p>Maria Stark, and why she stayed.</p><p>A final (?) companion piece to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/474603">They Came Sailing</a>, and <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/series/27678">Absolution's Grace</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Woman King

He kissed her like it was the end of the world, anger and desperation and _feeling_ – all those trivial, emotional things Howard Stark never, ever displayed. In those moments, he seemed like the man she never knew (but heard of), the one who had passion and brilliance and the _sheer brass balls_ to laugh and flirt and fondue through a war, and _won_.

She kissed him like he was the last man on earth. And wasn't he? Where the hell would one find another Howard Stark? Howard Stark, who, when she had asked him to marry her, laughed in surprise and admiration and ragged disbelief before he'd taken her dancing from England to Peru?

Howard Stark has a heart...lost, and buried at sea.

 

Howard took her flying, once; it surprised her, that he shared what was usually an intensely private affair (although eventually, the demands of his work and the frailties of age forced him to give it up). In that moment, soaring above the thermals at 10,000 feet, he smiled like he did nowhere else: soft and content with an edge of familiar joy. It made him look twenty years younger, and afterwards, he was at peace for days.

Howard never asked her, but he did not have to; if she outlived him – and she likely would, given their age difference and his career choice and all the bad habits and dangers that came with it – she would scatter his ashes into the sea, raining down from the clear blue freedom that he loved so much.

 

She did not ask him for much; neither did he ask much of her. Part of why he married her (or rather, accepted her marriage proposal) was that they both knew how much the other could take without so much as a word. Discussion was redundant when they knew each other. They did not ask; they _stated_ – asking implied the other had veto power, and neither of them ever waited for _permission_.

“I'm pregnant,” and that surprised them _both_ – Howard, at the news; Maria, at his visible doubt. Was she wrong? Nevertheless, she pressed on: “I want to keep him.”

Howard studied her through a long, awful silence, looking rueful and cynical and somehow mocking (at her or himself, she wasn't sure). Maria stared steadily back, chin up in silent challenge.

“Of course,” Howard said finally; he tried to smile.

Maria looked away. It didn't feel like winning.

 

Slowly but steadily, he touched her less and less after that.

Correlation was not causation; she knew that very well. Nonetheless...Maria always wondered if he was truly that busy, that damaged, or if he just wanted to avoid bringing one more life into this war of worlds.

 

They went to bed separately (if Howard ever went to bed at all); she didn't mind...much. Keeping odd hours was hardly the worst habit he'd taken from the war. And with SI on the climb and business booming, it was only natural that Howard'd stay up late to overlook the last bit of production or to make overseas calls, or something.

Most days, she did not disturb him, when he was elbows deep in the guts of one machine or another or making important calls. But on certain nights, she'd slip down to his workshop to find him staring blankly into space, tumbler in hand and emptiness in his eyes.

She'd pull up a chair and help herself to his drink (sometimes straight from the bottle); they'd stay there, silent ghosts until the dawn, where the only movements were their breathing and their muted swallows. She might not have been there for all Howard reacted to her, but he would not flinch away, and she considered that victory enough.

 

“Dad,” young Tony said once, as Howard bade them goodbye for his annual excursion into the oceans, “were you two...friends? Before, before he...died?”

Howard stopped for a long moment on the threshold. “Captain America is not dead,” he finally said, roughly.

“ _Howard_ ,” she knew he didn't really believe that; she knew and he knew that was not what he meant. As if finding a dead man's body would make up for the war ( _wars_ , plural, WWII and all the ones that came after), or for the bomb. As if _he_ should be the one to make up for it. (Howard had not been the one to _order_ said bomb.)

Howard looked up at her; she stared back over the edge of her glass, mouth a tight line. Howard would never give up this fool's errand, but she'd be damned if she let Howard drag them both down with him.

Tony watched them both, alarm creeping into his features. “Mom? Dad?”

A moment later, a bloodless smile ghosted past Howard's face, regret and grief and bitter sentiment.

“Go to bed, Tony,” he said softly as he turned away. “Goodnight.”

 

Sometimes, usually when Howard was on a business trip, Maria would go down to his office anyway, sit in his chair and drink his expensive scotch and pretend, for a moment, that she was him. Pleas and proposals spread out on 'her' desk, wars being waged and weapons being made and good men to protect and bring home, negotiations and surrenders and half the world's problems for 'her' to solve.

Twenty-odd years of marriage and they scarcely ever touch, had sex only a handful of times, but those times she touched her lips to his tumbler...it was almost the same.

 

“I'm sure...as long as you want me,” she'd said to him; she'd meant it then and she meant it now. Howard was not a project; he was not hers to fix. She'd known _who_ and _what_ he was, walking in; she could (with difficulty) walk back out.

But she'd not known how damn _lonely_ it would be, with a husband there but _not_ ; and perhaps (though she would never admit this aloud) part of the reason why she wanted Tony so desperately was to have a spitting image of Howard Stark who remembered, however briefly, how to laugh.

 

“You're his _father_ ,” she finally snapped at him one afternoon, because by god, that should _mean_ something to damn near everyone on this earth. Those snatches of half-conversations while Howard pored over his work _did not count_ – Howard scarcely paid the boy enough attention to keep him from hurting himself, even if Tony did glean enough from those mumbled instructions to build his own engines and circuit boards.

Howard held his silence, face completely blank and still as a stone; she watched this old man, and wondered if Tony would grow into him, 50 years on.

“...I'll take him with me on the next submarine trip,” Howard eventually said, and she wasn't even surprised that even his _concessions_ weren't from him.

 

She dressed like a queen – better than, even (and she has met Queen Elizabeth II, in person, to verify this). It was a little at odds with her charity work, and she has met scathing criticism for dressing in wares worth a year's food for those in poverty. But Starks could hardly dress in rags, and they'd not impress any donors if they showed up like vagrants off the street.

“Black tie or white tie?” Obadiah asked her, looking up from some blueprints undoubtedly hot off Howard's desk.

“You'll look dashing either way,” she assured him, planting a kiss on his head.

 

“Maria! Oh, darling, you look lovely!”

“Hello, Judith,” long-practiced smile, and two air-kisses on the cheeks. “I'm so glad you made it!”

“Wouldn't miss it for the world,” Judith assured her, squeezing her hands tight. “The opening night for Stark Foundation, how could anyone – hey,” she peered around Maria's shoulder, as if expecting a magician's appearance, “where in the world is Howard?”

“He couldn't make it,” Maria replied, and easily overrode Judith's aghast protests: “I think he had a meeting with the President. Or maybe it was the Secretary of Defense. You know how he is. My good friend, Mr. Stane, has accompanied me instead. Obie, you've met Judith, haven't you?”

Obadiah swept in, right on cue, and any questions Judith had was rapidly forgotten in the wake of charming words and kisses on the hand.

And Howard? Did he forget about the opening night, deep in his workshop and waging his war against worlds? She doubted it; Howard forgot very little. And she knew he would not forget an event and an organization that he'd – quietly, without fanfare or even acknowledgement – funded and organized and recruited members for without her so much as asking.

He was just...busy.

 

“You two are heroes, you know that, darling?” Catelyn was staring at Maria, all bright-eyed earnestness. “Howard brings them back, you bring them _home_. You make sure they're all patched up and have a home to go back to. I know it's all about Howard, Howard, Howard, but weapons aren't warm. Not like a cuppa is. Not like you. You're saving 'em like he is.”

“Thank you, Catelyn,” Maria kissed her cheek, and tried not to think about whose bombs made them need saving.

 

Tony, now older and harsher and all but given up on his father, asked her once: “Mom, why is Dad like... _that?_ ”

She paused and gave the same useless, inadequate answer she always has: “the war changed him, Tony.”

Tony nodded, like he understood. Maybe he did. “All right,” he gestured towards her tumbler, held tight within slender hands. “What about you?”

“ _Goodnight_ , Tony,” she rose and left the room. She trembled the entire way out.

 

Howard did love her (and Tony), she knew. More damnation she. She could not save him; she knew that too.

Maria did not know the man he had been, the one who was charming and cocky and flirted with anything in a skirt through the worst war the world has ever seen. Her Howard was colder, harder, more withdrawn, but he was _alive_ (which was more than she could say for the aforementioned 'better men').

She was no saint, no saviour; she just wouldn't let him fall alone. Every person in this building was an iron monger to the last. Howard built an empire, and he was king, and she's heard all the whispers calling her a gold-digger and a whore and worse, but that was not why she stayed.

She could not pull him from the ocean, but she could, however little, from however far away, anchor him to shore.

For all Howard's faults, he was _hers_ ; let it never be said that Maria Stark, née Carbonell, was not willing to go all in.

 

“I don't understand why she doesn't leave him,” Tony's voice filtered through the half-closed door, righteous and indignant like only a teenaged genius was. Maria froze, pressed herself against the wall, inches from the door.

There was a long silence. Obadiah then spoke, and not without some irony, “then I hope you never see war, boy.” As if they were not all war mongers down to the last.

“She, _we_ , can all do better,” Tony argued, as if one could just _leave_ a man like Howard Stark.

“And I hope you'll never have cause to see worse,” Obadiah returned. "Now, how about you show me if you've been practising your shots?”

 

“Thank you,” Maria told Obadiah later, because she has no doubt that he knew she was there.

He nodded and studied her, expression somewhere between admiration and pity. “How are you?”

“Doing well.” There was no other answer, because she has long ago decided she would not lay her agency at Howard's feet. This, as much as everything else, was every bit her choice.

She noticed, not for the first time, the weariness in Obadiah's face, the premature lines matching her own. Howard has been leaning on him hard. So has she. “I'm sorry about Howard.”

He shook his head. "You are all like family to me, but Howard is, first and foremost, my friend and business partner. For all his faults, I can confidently say he's never fallen short of _my_ expectations.”

The subtext being, of course, that Howard failed everyone else's. She tried to smile. “We're lucky to have you, Obie.”

He smiled back. “And back at you. I wish Howard would show his face to the shareholders once in a while, be the charmer I know he is. But that's a small quibble; I have no room to complain.” A wry, briefly wistful look. “Still, if he'd just leave his lab...”

“You'll be waiting a long time,” she murmured; the bright smile she flashed him almost reached her eyes.

 

“I want to send Tony to boarding school,” Howard told her, without preamble.

It slipped out without thinking: “For him or yourself?” She had not been so aggressive, once upon a time, but the opening salvo had been fired. “You know they can't hold a candle to your mind.”

Howard has the decency to look startled, then briefly pained, something dark haunting his face. “I'm no teacher.”

“You're a _father_ ,” and she wondered if he would ever know the difference.

 

“Go easy on him, Maria,” Obie tried once, after she finished a particularly scathing visit to Howard's office at 5 am. She didn't ask why Obie was awake, or how he knew just where to find her.

“I _have_ ,” she shot back, and yes, she's said her vows and meant it then and still meant it now, but she was a human, not a saint, and even saints had breaking points. “I think I've gone easier on him than he has any right to.”

Obie smiled; it twisted wanly on his face. “You know he just...wants to leave something behind that isn't death and destruction, whatever his career choice may be. He wanted to be – ”

“ – a pilot, I know,” Maria cut in. She slumped against a wall, a bitter crack in her voice. “Obie...will anyone besides us even remember? Even know who he was and wanted to be? His army buddies – they're dead or as good as, now. All he does now is _kill_ – enemies, us, himself. When will he ever stop?”

“But how many will he save?” Obie countered, eyes dark; she has no answer to that.

Behind her, there was the distant sound of glass splintering; satisfaction was at once vicious and hollow.

 

Their quiet return from the gala was on par for the course until their car skidded beneath them, and then she was screaming and the car was spinning with Howard's wheel as metal screeched and tore like paper –

...when she came to, cold and distant like she'd been dropped in the ocean, Howard was almost on top of her, crushed by the impact that crumpled their car like a toy; his neck hung oddly and his face was full of glass, shards gleaming wetly in the dark.

There was no life in him, and for all his efforts (the truck had been coming from _her_ side), she would not be far behind.

 _To the victor goes the spoils_ , her life was waning with blood between her teeth, but on the edge of death, hand in her husband's hair and thoughts with her son, Maria Stark wondered who actually won.

**Author's Note:**

> I do think that I've built this sketch of Maria to center around Tony and Howard (with Obadiah in orbit) too much; however, even in the comics canon information on her is woefully scarce, and MCU has but a brief mention of her existence. However one interprets Howard Stark, at least we have _something_ to go on; Maria doesn't even have that. I've borrowed whatever comics canon I could (the socialite part, the charities that paves the way to Tony's Maria Stark Foundation), and made do with the rest.


End file.
